


Dagger

by heartdecay



Category: New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: (Not explicitly mentioned), Angst, F/M, Grief (Implied), Post-Canon, Rough Sex, Trans Saihara Shuichi, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-15
Updated: 2020-09-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:28:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26473405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartdecay/pseuds/heartdecay
Summary: Maki wasn't made to support herself. Neither was Shuichi.One hollow person leans into another.
Relationships: Harukawa Maki/Saihara Shuichi
Comments: 6
Kudos: 33





	Dagger

**Author's Note:**

> heed the tags. this fic is super short but it's heavy enough. consent is fully implied, but under better circumstances, i do not think these characters would make these choices. so keep that in mind and take care. thanks for picking this up regardless!

It starts the same way it always does. Maki says “I’m cold.”

She is not wishing she had brought a jacket, some indirect request for Shuichi to lend her his. She would simply demand Shuichi's jacket and Shuichi would give it to her.

She is not making small talk, trying to salvage an awkward silence; there was no conversation in the first place. The company she keeps with Shuichi is mostly quiet and cordial.

She is not trying to spare Shuichi his feelings and express that she is tired of his company, because that isn't something she cares about, much less something she would do. If she were sick of him for the night, she'd say as much, and leave for her own home.

She doesn’t say it to indicate an August day has just become a chilly September evening, either. It's no hint about the passing of time and how it has become an indiscriminate blur save for the shifting of seasons. It is a hot night in the middle of July. Reminding Shuichi that their lives are wasting away is as pointless a thing to say as water is wet. Or, that it is cold outside because September has just rolled in and reminded her that, yes, it's been another entire year since the 53rd seasons has made its wrap. Maki is not so stupid as to speak the obvious aloud in such a redundant, useless way.

When Maki says she is cold, she says it because she is freezing inside. She says it because she knows Shuichi feels it too.

Shuichi is just as hollow as she is. His heart was carved open and left an empty casket just like hers was. He's half a person. A walking, talking foil. He understands, because of course he does, and the "me too" slips from his lips a gentle sigh just like he was made to do, like he was made to fill a role. She knows he knows they have nothing left.

More or less, this is the way it always goes. I'm cold. Me too. And they become shadows on the wall of her apartment. It's about as deep as a puddle and water is still wet.

The way Shuichi turns to look at her after these brief exchanges of words is the worst part every time. She doesn't understand how he can bear to be so vulnerable still, it's dangerous to be openly empathetic, to show that you always have more room to care. She figures he's either too kind for his own good or very, very poorly written. Maybe both. But that's cruel. It's cruel, and Shuichi would say so, too.

She sometimes wonders how she got so messed up, or rather, how fun it must've been to mess her up this bad. Her god is real and when her god picks his favorites, he certainly doesn't hold back. That's what thinks is truly cruel. Favoritism. It's got her this far twice.

She snubs the thought with a laugh, because despite everything, at least Shuichi is still good at following a lead after all these years. Two words and he knows exactly what she wants, exactly what she needs, and knows better than to question it when he can't deny that he wants it too.

His hair, and hers too, is frizzing in the stale air of a mid-July night, the day’s heat still rising in a steady hot plume from the metal and concrete of the city. It’s too gross and hot to kiss but they do it anyway.

She isn't worried about getting her photo taken doing something like this in public. People don't try anymore. They probably learned a thing or two from the altercations and the lawsuits. She can still move at breakneck speed and Team Danganronpa still has the best legal team in the country.

Photographs of Maki Harukawa and Shuichi Saihara are copyright infringement. Maki Harukawa is a top-notch assassin. She can't decide which of these statements is funnier. Maki's hair sticks to Shuichi's hand as he brushes it over her shoulder. It joins with the rest of her hair hanging freely behind her back. It's tender enough to hurt and make her pull their lips back together.

When they pull away, they do not look at each other, much like two people do not look at each other when they huddle together, trying to escape the cold. The fight to survive is not one that incites passion, so one can only assume that it is desperation that pulls their lips together like this, time after time.

When Shuichi asks Maki if he can walk her home, Maki does not acknowledge his question. It's stupid and he knows it. She glides in the direction of her apartment building but leaves the sidewalk open. Shuichi gets his answer when she claws him inside. 

The stripe of light cast from the hallway hardly escapes Shuichi’s back before the collar to his shirt is yanked open. Maki throws Shuichi's up against the door and presses all of her weight into him because it feels so much less like she’s going to disappear this way. He feels so solid for someone who believes himself to be such an empty outline. She breathes in sharply and drops her hands from his neck.

Shuichi is left flattened on the bed of her door leveling his breath with Maki skirting quickly across her studio to fetch her hair ties. She doesn’t own scrunchies anymore, but what difference would it make? She might as well. Here she is, looping her wrists through elastic and snapping pigtails to either side of her head. She doesn't feel like assessing the damage in the mirror.

“Bring the beer,” Maki says from inside the bathroom. She drags one of her long, heavy pigtails over her shoulder where Shuichi can’t see her do it and sheds her top part-way, leaving it hung over her shoulders, the black banding of her bra connecting the two white planes of her open shirt.

Maki hears Shuichi rummage through her fridge, his steps gentle and polite at this hour, and watches him set two beers on her side table next to an ash tray and a pill bottle. She leans against the frame of her bathroom's doorway as Shuichi takes a tentative seat on her bed, dragging his face slowly up to meet hers. He's making that face again, the one that hurts Maki more. Makes her sick. She springs on him and shoves him down flat on her bed.

She flicks her belt buckle open, then his, shuffles him out of his pants, then shuffles herself out of hers. The way his hands gingerly slip around her shoulders - the softness one would only grant to a lover - sickens her, but she perseveres. She knows he needs it that way just like she needs it this way.

Maki angles her hips over his and shoves her fingers roughly inside Shuichi. She guides his fingers inside herself in the same way and moves in tangent. She focuses every last bit of her consciousness on the build of pressure, the friction, the heat. Their bodies curl closer together, and hotter, until they’re sticking together, searching to fill every last desolate, empty crevice with one another. When Maki comes her forehead drops into the crook of Shuichi’s shoulder and with a blank mind, she sends Shuichi right after her.

The worst part isn’t when she collapses next to him, her mind knocked out and her eyes shut, panting. Because now, their relationship is cordial at best. Shuichi thanks her like she bought him a cold beer on a hot July night, like a friend would, and they huddle their exerted bodies together because that is the only thing to do.

The worst part is how cold she knows she'll be until they do it all again. 

**Author's Note:**

> originally i'd written this from shuichi's POV, but maki is such a treat to write. she's so goddamn angry hahah.


End file.
